Dec 5th – 11th: Performances of George Frederic Handel’s Messiah

Mann consulted several primary sources in the service of his edition:  (a) Handel’s autograph manuscript, now preserved in the British Library; (b) Handel’s own conducting score, which had been copied from the autograph manuscript by Handel’s assistant and copyist, John Christopher Smith, and is now preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford;  (c) a conducting score written out by copyist Smith for his son, John Christopher Smith the younger (1712-1795), who served as organist in Handel’s performances and later directed the London Messiah performances after Handel’s death, now preserved in the Hamburg State Library; and (d)  a score and complete set of parts, copied from Handel’s own performance material by several copyists under the direction of John Christopher Smith the elder, and presented by direction of Handel’s will to the Foundling Hospital (London), now preserved in the archives of the Thomas Coram Foundation.  The rest of Mann’s sources were all printed editions and published critical commentaries.  Significantly, Handel’s conducting score differs from the autograph in that it bears layers of annotations and additions, added by Handel in the course of directing performances of Messiah between 1742 and 1759.  It was that same performance involvement to which Alfred Mann alluded when he said, “Each performance of Handel’s incomparable masterpiece necessarily reflects an editing process.”^[6]  As Mann also observed, “Messiah holds an unusual place in the repertoire, not only because the work has met with unqualified success ever since its first performance but also because the first two decades of this triumphant history were marked by Handel’s personal direction.  During that time the composer made numerous changes in the work and enlarged the score with scrupulous annotations which both complicate its modern interpretation and enhance its extraordinary stature.”^[7]

George Frederic Handel’s association with the Foundling Hospital in London is the story of a charitable impulse realized in music.  The Foundling Hospital, founded in 1739 by Captain (retired) Thomas Coram (1668-1751) and established by royal charter signed by King George II, was formally promoted as the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children.   As a private charity, the Foundling Hospital was from its outset entirely dependent on individual contributions; however, it soon became a much-recognized charity that would number several prominent citizens among its supporters, including artist William Hogarth (1697-1764), who was one of the Hospital’s founding governors.^[8]  In 1749 Handel conducted a benefit concert at the Hospital to raise funds for the completion of its chapel; the following year he provided an organ for the newly finished chapel, and conducted Messiah there on May 1st, 1750 as the new organ’s inaugural concert.  In response to Handel’s generosity, the Hospital’s General Committee elected him one of the Hospital’s governors.  The concert in May, 1750 was hugely successful in both musical and fundraising terms; it would prove to be merely the first in a series of annual Messiah performances at the Foundling Hospital led by Handel for the express purpose of raising funds for the Hospital’s work.  Between 1750 and 1754 Handel personally conducted those performances, and after that time, with his health in decline, he continued to support the performances by his attendance up until his death.  A codicil to his will directed that a copy of the score and parts of Messiah be given to the Foundling Hospital, his intention having  been to provide for the continuation of the Messiah benefit performances.  Those performances would, in fact, continue for another two decades.  Altogether, the Messiah performances at the Foundling Hospital raised some 7,000 pounds^[9] for the Hospital’s operating costs; further, where Handel’s legacy was concerned, the concerts also served to popularize the oratorio with English audiences, a point on which many writers have elaborated.

The 1981 Eastman Chorale performance featured fourteen soloists, all of whom were students; in order of appearance, they were Martin Kelly, tenor; Matthew Lau, bass (MM 1983); Rebecca Russell, alto (BM 1983); Terry Strandt, bass (DMA 1982); Donna Mitchell, soprano (BM 1983, MM 1985); Myung Kim, soprano (BM 1980, MM 1982); Teresa Ringholz, soprano (BM 1981, MM 1983); Richard Byrne, bass (BM 1985); Renee Fleming, soprano (MM 1983); Gene Scheer, bass (BM 1981, MM 1982); Mark Thomsen, tenor (MM); Julia Faulkner, soprano; Robyn Redon, alto; and, Donna Jean Vaclav, soprano (MM 1983). Mann’s edition was being heard for the first time, and taking his edition into consideration, some of the more obvious points of departure were the following.^[10]   In Handel’s conducting score, a division of the orchestra was apparent such that a smaller instrumental group (indicated in Mann’s score as senza rip. [ripieno]) accompanied the arias and recitatives, while the full ensemble (indicated by the rubric con rip. [ripieno])  accompanied the choruses (although even in the choruses, Handel sometimes used the smaller group).  Mann also restored an 11-bar version of the “Pastoral Symphony” (at the beginning of part II), much shorter than what modern audiences have been accustomed to hearing, but something that Handel had initially intended (Handel himself had at one point crossed out the longer version).  Further, Mann endorsed terrace dynamics in performance, eliminating altogether any crescendo between forte and piano.  As he himself put it at this time, “What has been taken out . . . is [sic] all the influences of  romantic and symphonic conceptions.  Everything becomes very clear cut, black and white.”^[11]   Conductor Donald Neuen, for his part, described as his goal   “ . . . trying to let the Messiah be a real piece of Baroque music, one that will live and dance just as it lived and danced . . . in the time that it was performed . . . and not destroyed by an overweight, pompous approach.”^[12]  To that end, he had assembled a chamber-sized orchestra of 29 players, selected from the Eastman School Symphony Chamber Orchestra (David Effron, conductor).  He favored more lively tempos and sought to delineate shorter phrases; he also took care to segue the arias and choruses with minimum pause so as to achieve a continuous stream of music, thereby emphasizing the oratorio’s overall structure.  The orchestral players were performing from parts that had been prepared and edited from microfilms of the parts that the composer had bequeathed to the Foundling Hospital.  Alfred Mann was quoted as having observed, “The students’ eyes have been lighting up in rehearsals.  They release that these notes haven’t been played the way Handel wanted since musicians played under Handel himself.  I feel like an archaeologist.”^[13]   The Eastman School of Music provided a grant for the preparation of the orchestral parts corresponding to Mann’s edition, and by the time of the 1983 Eastman Chorale performance and recording, the parts had been engraved and printed.  As in the full score edited by Mann, “forte” and “piano” are spelled out in full, just as they were in Handel’s conducting score and in the manuscript bequeathed to the Foundling Hospital.  Throughout the parts, the rubrics “senza rip.” or “con rip.” direct when added parts are to join or else leave the ensemble.

The Eastman Chorale’s 1983 performance of Messiah enjoyed the presence of another renowned Handel scholar, Danish musicologist (and Professor Emeritus at the University of Copenhagen) Jens Peter Larsen, whose work had greatly influenced modern Handel scholarship.^[14]  Professor Larsen was a Visiting Professor at Eastman in the fall of 1983, and on December 6th, 1983, three days before the Messiah performance, he joined a panel discussion on Messiah performance traditions alongside conductor Donald Neuen, Alfred Mann, and five of the performers appearing in the Eastman Chorale performance (four vocal soloists and harpsichordist Arthur Haas).  The discussion was moderated by Lowell Lindgren.  Speaking in his capacity as Handel scholar, Professor Larsen presented an historical overview, after which Dr. Mann spoke on the various editions of Messiah; the panel then discussed such topics as vocal solos, choruses, instrumentation, tempo and dynamics, and ornamentation.  Three days later, on December 9th, the members of the Eastman Chorale were joined in concert by the Eastman Philharmonia Chamber Orchestra (David Effron, conductor) and eight vocal soloists, four of whom were faculty members, to perform Messiah in its entirety.  The soloists were Seth McCoy, tenor;^[15] Tom Paul, bass;^[16] Marcia Baldwin, mezzo soprano;^[17] Jan DeGaetani, mezzo soprano;^[18] Jennifer Cable, soprano (MM 1983, DMA 1989); Carmen Pelton, soprano (MM, PC 1980); Teresa Ringholz, soprano (BM 1981, MM 1983); and, James Courtney, baritone (MM 1973).